From the Editor’s Desk: What is the Problem?

I’ve come to believe that many authors, especially the less experienced and novices among us, are focused on the wrong problem. They’re trying to achieve something, but what they want to achieve does not align with what they can do or what they can control. For example:

​Many writers are focused on publication. For them the problem is to find a publisher. For some writers, fame is the game, and the object there is not only to find a publisher, but to find a publisher with sufficient prestige to index the author’s ego. Some writers want (or more likely, need) money, and so the object is sales and royalties. Others are desperate for that five-star review. For academic writers, the problem may be to win tenure; there too the issue at hand is to land a book contract—before the tenure clock expires.
 
In each case, however, the object sought is beyond the author’s control. An author cannot control whether a publisher offers a contract to publish, nor can they control sales. You may not even be able to control how your book is designed and formatted (I’ll have more to say on production later on.)

There is in fact only one part of the writing and publication process over which the author has complete and unmitigated control, and that is in the production of the narrative.
 
Readers want stories. I believe this is true regardless of genre, fiction or non-fiction. We want to read stories, ones which move us, convince us, or motivate us. We want to read about how one state of affairs evolved, changed, or developed into a different state of affairs. In that change a lesson is learned or an inspiration given. This is no less true in academic writing, which though theoretical and analytical, still wants to show a distinction between two or more states of affair and thereby offer a lesson or an insight. We call the territory traversed in and by these different states of affair a “narrative.”
 
As a writer, all you can control is the story you are writing, to make it the most interesting, compelling, and moving narrative that you can. If a writer can do that, all the other questions and concerns take care of themselves. The publisher will find you, wealth and fame, if they are in one’s destiny, will find you. Tenure will come.
 
Focus on what matters, on what you can control—your narrative!—and let the rest work itself out.
 
I am committed to the power of story-telling, and thus to the craft of narrative. Check this space often for more insights into narrative craft, on literary style, and into the sometimes arcane world of publishing. And don’t hesitate to contact me if I can help you in your own narrative journey: [email protected].
​--David J. Snyder